A search query is a powerful, real-time indicator of user's intent and interests. Any system that can characterize a user's interests from the search query is useful for both content recommendation and ad-targeting purposes. A search query submitted within a particular focus area of a site, such as travel, finance, music, etc., otherwise known as a vertical, is a good indicator of the user's interests in that vertical. Users who perform searches within a particular vertical provide valuable context information which aids in generating high quality search results and are good candidates for recommendation and targeting applications within that vertical. However, a vast majority of users submit queries to the main search box and not within any particular vertical. The main search box does not provide context information.
The volume of search queries, over a given period, in main search is typically one to two orders of magnitude larger than the volume of queries within any given vertical. A tool that characterizes a main search query as relevant or belonging to one or more particular verticals allows the main search query to be submitted to recommendation and ad-targeting applications tailored to the particular verticals, which greatly increases the effectiveness of ads and recommendations.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.